by Prof. Dr. M. Fansa

Man has used experiment for hundreds of years, as an attempt to throw light on the early and pre-historic conditions of different cultures. Experimental archaeology is an inclusive term encompassing all theories and experiments, ancillary technology, devices and procedures used for reconstruction, testing and explanation.

It is true that Experimental Archaeology is about reconstructing the living conditions of pre-historic times; however, not every reconstruction is an experiment - although every experiment may lead to a reconstruction.

Initial experiments in the 19th century were still rather unsystematic; but as time went by, experimental archaeology developed into a methodical discipline within ancient history research.

Experimental archaeology is scientific work, utilizing measuring instruments and documentation media. Archaeological theses, at first merely based on theoretical deliberations, are systematically verified in practice, in controlled environments.

The goal of each such experiment has to be precisely defined in advance. By using the derived information on life in the past - e.g. the use of tools, or the amount of time and energy consumed for specific activities - pre-historians are able to produce approximate reconstructions of our ancestors` life circumstances.

Experimental archaeology is based on findings, e.g. doorposts, finds (e.g. a stone axe), and historical sources such as texts or figurative representations. These in turn generate new questions associated with the nature of materials, manufacture, or with their functioning and the amount of time spent on the relative task. Furthermore, studies must include analyses of the storage situation of earth-found materials, and the changes produced by different environmental processes. All these aspects imply that researchers are familiar with research history and prepare their experiments thoroughly.

Any experiment must be reproducible, in order to preclude contingencies. Furthermore, the process must be followed up by scientific documentation. Finally, attempts are made to analyze results which confirm existing theories or constitute new insights. When these results have been re-organized according to topic, their culture-historical implications are interpreted and categorized, they can now make the starting point of new research issues and initiatives.

Experimental archaeology cannot deliver unequivocal proof of specific methods in tool-making and the lifeways of early and prehistoric man. One option, among others, is to explain and interpret a given context. However, it can provide us with a fairly concrete idea of the achievements of our ancestors - meaning that the field open to conjecture is being restricted.

All experiments conducted so far have tried to illuminate various techniques of our past. However, such studies are of little avail when it comes to the behaviour and individual decisions of man. Nevertheless, experimental archaeology has succeeded in making human achievement the pivotal point of their research and public relations efforts.

Experimental archaeology deals with different fields:

• Experiments to verify production methods;
• Experiments to test the time consumption associated with producing specific objects, or for performing given activities;
• Experiments examining the origin of archaeological findings, e.g. the decomposition process of a potter`s oven;
• Experiments regarding chemical and physical sequences of operation associated with various raw materials, e.g. studies on the provenience of raw materials, such as flint and obsidian.

To a certain extent, such experiments pursue several objectives, e.g. the production process, consumed time and reconstructions. The most frequent experiments consist in re-constructions using specified methods (e.g. the reconstruction of a dugout or a house).

While experimental archaeology has a tradition of its own in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, the understanding of the specialty still needs to be deepened in Germany. More experimental centres are needed, similar to the Museumsdorf Düppel (a museum village); for Germany to compare with the level of other European nations, we should also harness the positions of existing institutions.

Experimental archaeology was a special priority of the "Third Reich". However, it was preoccupied with producing 'reconstructions` corroborating ideological guidelines, rather than with concise research efforts. Pure conjecture was presented as experimental conclusions. This may serve to explain why experimental archaeology in Germany, compromised as it was since World War 2, was never able to win public support for experimental methods, the way it happened elsewhere.

After 1945, German pre-history researchers simply closed this chapter and retreated to the pursuit of abstract science. They left experimentation and reconstructing to their colleagues abroad, who practically had a free scope to develop a leading position in the field - including the mediation of research findings. This explains why Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries have had major centres for years, in which visitors have contributed by actually participating in experiments, for instance along the lines that have been conducted by the Lejre Experimental Centre, Denmark, for a number of years.

Not until the seventies did Köln University launch agricultural experiments, directed by Prof. Jens Lüning. A spot of forest land was cleared, using linear band ceramic tools, with the aim of testing neolithic farming.

In the last thirty years, many archaeologists, and also folklorists, have engaged in experimental archaeology. In time, a number of these activities have developed into large-scale research projects. Some worth mentioning are the Museumsdorf Düppel (Museum Village Düppel), Berlin, the archaeological open air museum Oerlinghausen near Detmold, and Groß Raden near Schwerin, in addition to the "Langobardenwerkstatt" ("The Lombard Workshop") at Zethlingen.

Interdisciplinary cooperation is a marked feature of our discipline, especially with ethnology and industrial archaeology. Parallel with the developments in experimental archaeology and ethnology, recent decades have seen the emergence of a new discipline, ethno-archaeology. Though the new discipline still remains to be communicated to the German public as a "mediating link between the two humanities studies", its outline is becoming quite well-defined. Its function is to bring the fields of ethnology and archaeology back together, in order

to illuminate and help us understand the relationship between cultural development and change and the dying out of cultural features. As for its methods, ethno-archaeology encompasses two different research approaches, "living archaeology" and "experimental archaeology".

Experimental archaeology is inseparable from its photographic resp. cinematic documentation. An archaeological experiment without the use of film documentation is an incomplete research task. When it comes to providing substantial documentation, and then to actively communicate it to a wider public, the contemporary media films are indispensable. Reproductibility is best achieved by repetition, over and over, that is: by utilizing motion pictures (film).

In order to make the procedure of certain experiments reproducible, some museums have included instructional presentation shows of already verified experiments. In this case procedures were repeated which had already yielded results. Such activities staged by the museums` educational staffs have mistakenly been understood as experimental archaeology.

Museum instruction and experimental archaeology is a complex field. The replication or reproduction of scientific experiments is a legitimate and important tool in museum instruction. After all, getting closer to history is what it is all about. By reproducing experiments, we all have a chance to make experiences on our own - a fact of increasing importance, if we want to offer an antidote to the superficial way history is marketed nowadays.

Prof. Dr. M. Fansa
(Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde und Vorgeschichte Oldenburg)